Luke 10:1-24
Read Luke 10:1-4
Look at each of the following statements from Jesus.
What does each statement mean to you?
What do they show us about the work these disciples were called to do?
What do they tell us about the towns/people that Jesus sent them to?
"The harvest is plentiful"
"The workers are few"
"Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
"Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves." [1]
"Do not take a purse or bag or sandals" [1]
"Do not greet anyone on the road" [1]
Jesus' instructions continue...
Read Luke 10:5-12
What is the significance of the word 'peace' here?
How is the message of Jesus's coming a message of 'peace'?
What does it mean that peace will rest on 'a child of peace' (or that if not, it will return to you)? [2]
Why should they accept hospitality from welcoming, peaceful people (and towns)?
And why should they give the warning of verses 11-12 to those who are unwelcoming of Jesus, his peace and his kingdom?
What principles (if any) do you think we can take from Jesus' instructions here for our own interactions with people who don't yet know Jesus?
Are there any instructions here that do not translate to our context? (If so, what are they, and why don't they translate across?)
Jesus continues the thought that he began in verse 12 to lament the towns that have already rejected him:
Read Luke 10:13-16
Why do you think Jesus speaks about this to his disciples in this context?
Why is the judgement of God so serious for those who reject Jesus (or even those who reject his messengers)?
Read Luke 10:17-24
What did the mission of the seventy-two achieve?
As you look at Jesus' words here, to what degree does he think their success due to their own wisdom and abilities, and to what degree was it actually God's success? [3]
How should we think about sharing Jesus with others in light of this?
Take some time now to share stories of 'success' you have seen in sharing Jesus with others.
To what degree is that success yours, and to what degree is it God's?
Spend some time praising God for the messengers he sent to you, so that you could come to know Jesus.
Spend some time praising God for the stories you've shared tonight.
Spend some time praying for your friends and family who you would like to share Jesus with, that He would make a way for them to hear and come to know Him.
[1] Leon Morris helpfully explains the instructions found in verses 3-4:
They go to no easy task. Lambs in the midst of wolves are in no enviable situation. The simile points both to danger and to helplessness. God’s servants are always in some sense at the mercy of the world, and in their own strength they cannot cope with the situation in which they find themselves. They must look to God. So Jesus tells them to take no equipment (cf. 9:3). The purse (ballantion, used by Luke only in the New Testament) is a money-bag. The bag (pēra) is a traveller’s bag. That they are to carry no sandals probably means, not that they are to go barefoot, but that they are not to take a spare pair. They are to go as they are. Salute no one on the road is not an exhortation to impoliteness: it is a reminder that their business is urgent and that they are not to delay it by dallying with wayside acquaintances. Eastern salutations can be elaborate and time-consuming.
Leon Morris, Tyndale Commentary Vol 3: Luke, p. 201
[2] N.T. Wright explains,
At the heart of his call was the message of peace. ‘Peace to this house,’ the messengers were to say, looking to see whether there was a 'child of peace’ there. Jesus’ contemporaries were for the most part not wanting peace — peace with their traditional enemies the Samaritans (about whom one of Jesus’ most famous parables will occupy us later in this chapter), or peace with the feared and hated Romans. They wanted an all-out war that would bring God’s justice swiftly to their aid and get rid of their enemies once and for all. But Jesus’ vision of God’s kingdom was going in the opposite direction. As far as he was concerned, the idea of fighting evil with evil was like the children of Israel wanting to go back to Egypt. Other movements had tried the way of violence, with disastrous results. But his rejection of that way was not based simply on pragmatic considerations. It grew directly out of his knowledge and love of Israel’s God as the God of generous grace and astonishing, powerful, healing love. This was the God whose life-giving power flowed through him to heal; this was the God to whose kingdom he was committed.
N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, p. 122
[3] Michael Wilcock writes,
In these two short sections it is certainly not being suggested that God’s people can be passive and unthinking, while he manipulates their bodies like puppets and programmes their minds like computers. Of course both in body and mind they are active in his service, now in this evangelistic rehearsal as later in the full-dress mission of the church. But their passionate, devoted, activity springs from abilities which he has given, not which they have evolved, and from understanding which he has revealed, not which they have attained. Indeed, the thing which above all else makes Christ’s people what they are, is the fact that every one of them can say, ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ Thus the account of the return of the seventy reaches forward in time, and captures the essence of the new age of the Spirit which is to begin at Pentecost: the supernatural indwelling power of Christ among and within his people. Well may they and he rejoice together (10:17, 21) at this divine seal on the wonders that are to come.
Michael Wilcock, Luke, Bible Speaks Today Commentary, p122